Happy Fruity Friday! Our community project for today (a repeat from 2014): wear something fruity. It doesn’t have to be a fruity floral, just something with plenty of fruit.
What fragrance did you pick? As always, do chime in with your scent of the day even if you’re not participating in the community project.
I’m shockingly fruity in Arielle Shoshana Eau de Parfum.
Reminder: 6/16 will be Oddball Friday…
Go ahead, perfumistas, think of all the perfumes you know with a pompom attached to the bottle. I am sure there are more — do comment! — but I could only think of four off the top of my head. Three of those are from Ariana Grande (Ari / Frankie / Sweet Like Candy) and the fourth is Annick Goutal’s latest launch, Tenue de Soirée. If Ariana Grande and Annick Goutal strike you as unexpected bedfellows, think again, because the times they are a-changing at Annick Goutal. The new buzz words are “fun, quirky and young”, and they’re looking to shake up everything from the packaging to the logo to the brand name itself. Tenue de Soirée (evening dress or evening wear) is the “bridge” between the old Annick Goutal and the new, brand-name-yet-to-be-announced. Expect to see the full results of the rebranding by 2018, and for Goutal’s existing line up to be pared down to about 20 or 25 fragrances…
Ladies and gentlemen, take your seats. The Fruitchouli match is ready to begin. On the right we have peach and apricot in their full jammy splendor. On the left is patchouli, with an assist from amber. With power players like this, who will win? And will anyone be able to sit through the entire competition without a clothespin for her nose?
“Fruitchouli” is the clever name for a genre of fragrances with — you guessed it — prominent fruit and patchouli notes, such as Calvin Klein Euphoria. The term is usually bestowed disparagingly. (If you know who coined fruitchouli, please leave a comment! It’s become such a part of the perfumista vocabulary that I can’t pin down where it originated, but I’d love to give proper credit.)
Andy Tauer had the guts to make fruitchouli his own by creating Tauerville Fruitchouli Flash…
When Anna Sui launched La Vie De Bohème in 2013, I tried it as soon as I could, and then I promptly forgot all about it. I think it smelled a lot like 2010’s Forbidden Affair, but you could also have also shelved it with all the Secret Wish flankers. The thing is: yes, Anna Sui does design girlish frocks in sheer fabrics and pastel florals, the sartorial equivalent of airy, grapefruit-y scents in pink bottles. But the designer also offers a more sophisticated aesthetic in her clothing: beaded flapper dresses, cut-velvet tunics, tall boots, fringed scarves in vintage-inspired textiles, lots of black and purple and red.
I’m a longtime Anna Sui customer when it comes to items in the latter category (at least, when they’re on the sale rack!), so I was curious about La Nuit De Bohème Eau de Toilette. It’s meant to be a “more dramatic and elegant version” of La Vie, with notes of champagne citrus and blackberry; lotus flower, rose and oud; cedar, vanilla orchid, patchouli and amber. It was developed by perfumers Jérome Epinette and Michel Almairac, and it’s packaged in a very shiny golden iteration of the La Vie rose-and-butterfly bottle…
Lingerie brand Agent Provocateur recently launched Fatale, a new feminine fragrance with notes of Madagascar pink pepper, succulent mango nectar, exotic blackcurrant, velvet gardenia, royal orris absolute, Indonesian patchouli, sulty skin musk, vanilla orchid aphrodisiac, chocolate gourmand addiction and Spanish labdanum. (I left the original press release text intact, for your reading pleasure.) Fatale was developed by perfumer Jean-Marc Chaillan and seems to signal a change in direction for the Agent Provocateur fragrance collection.
I’m a fan of several older Agent Provocateur perfumes, including the original Agent Provocateur and (my favorite) the floral-amber Maîtresse. I also found 2012’s Pétale Noir very wearable and pleasant, not to mention its gorgeous packaging. The new packaging design for Fatale is the first difference you’ll notice…